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Access through your institution Buy or subscribe Haptic interfaces have existed for many years, but touch is still challenging to emulate. There is still plenty to be understood about how
the mind develops a tactile sense of materials — their softness, compliance, texture and so forth — from the delicate feedback between skin and brain. It’s not clear, for example, what the
relevant coordinates are for tactile space: how we categorize such sensual characteristics. A new study of haptic sensation in virtual reality (VR) supplies a demonstration of how touch is
acutely sensitive to other sensory cues, especially vision. Berger et al. tested users of a VR system that generates an illusion of material objects from small vibrations delivered to
handheld controllers in each hand1. When the vibrations are suitably synchronized, the user experiences the sense of there being a single, material source located in the empty space between
the hands. In the experiments this source could be rendered visually in the VR headset as a vibrating white marble. This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
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FAQs * Contact customer support REFERENCES * Berger, C. C., Gonzalez-Franco, M., Ofek, E. & Hinckley, K. _Sci. Robot._ 3, eaar7010 (2018). Article Google Scholar * Murphy, R. R. _Sci.
Robot._ 3, eeat8447 (2018). Article Google Scholar Download references AUTHOR INFORMATION AUTHORS AND AFFILIATIONS * Nature Materials https://www.nature.com/naturematerials Philip Ball
Authors * Philip Ball View author publications You can also search for this author inPubMed Google Scholar CORRESPONDING AUTHOR Correspondence to Philip Ball. RIGHTS AND PERMISSIONS Reprints
and permissions ABOUT THIS ARTICLE CITE THIS ARTICLE Ball, P. Zombie materials. _Nature Mater_ 17, 479 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0095-4 Download citation * Published: 23
May 2018 * Issue Date: June 2018 * DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41563-018-0095-4 SHARE THIS ARTICLE Anyone you share the following link with will be able to read this content: Get shareable
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